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6 juillet 2018 | International, C4ISR

The Pentagon’s latest budget is its largest counter-drone budget ever

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As the Pentagon's latest budget slouches towards Washington, a $716 billion beast waiting to be born, it is time to take a closer look at how the robots in the budget survived the various committees and drafts. As expected, the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act is a boon for drones, allocating funding for nearly three times as many uncrewed vehicles as in previous years. Most of those new drones are small, cheaper models, which is a trend reflecting in the other big spending increased in this budget: the Pentagon is set to spend almost twice as much on countering other drones in 2019 as it spend on that same in 2018.

The Association of Unmanned Vehicles System International has provided an in-depth look at how exactly the 1.4 percent of the defense budget allocated to drones is spent, detailing the minute differences in the comparatively meager $9.6 billion allocation. From the AUVSI's report:


Separating the President's Budget request by domain, we see that air is receiving the largest funding support with the budget for unmanned aircraft reaching almost $7 billion in FY2019, followed by $1.5 billion for counter unmanned systems (C-UxS), $1.3 billion for unmanned maritime vehicles and $0.7 billion for ground robotics. From FY2018 to FY2019, the budget for C-UxS technologies almost doubles. Figure 2 also shows the number of unique projects and sub-projects that involve unmanned systems relative to the domains in which they are operating. Cross-domain operations of air and ground unmanned vehicles are supported by the largest number of projects. Over 60 percent of these efforts are funded by the U.S. Army. The U.S. Navy is also working to provide solutions for interoperability and teaming of unmanned vehicles across multiple domains as they support over half of the projects involving operations in all domains (air, ground, and maritime).

For the counter-drone mission, the Pentagon is splitting $1.5 billion between over 90 different projects, ranging from modifications to existing missiles and anti-air systems to directed energy weapons to electronic warfare software. The largest share of the 2019 budget for counter-UAS is set to go to the Army's Indirect Fire Protection family of systems, though the most interesting projects aren't always the budget headliners.

Buried further down the spending list is DARPA's “Multi-Azimuth Defense Fast Intercept Round Engagement System” (MAD-FIRES) project, which a projectile as agile and useful for interception as a missile, but cheap enough to be fired and fielded like a bullet. There's also a submunitions project from the Air Force to “Exploit the signatures of ISR targets; capture and catalog multi-spectral signatures on asymmetric threat Unmanned Aerial Systems.” That project is dubbed “Chicken Little,” perhaps with the explicit goal of making the sky fall.

What the diversity of counter-drone programs, and drone programs generally, in the new Pentagon budget show is that this is still a young field, one with drone types and countermeasures all in flux. It's likely that future years will see more spending on counter drone tools, but it's also equally likely that the range of countermeasures will shrink as people fighting learn first-hand what does and doesn't work.

https://www.c4isrnet.com/unmanned/2018/07/05/the-pentagons-latest-budget-is-its-largest-counter-drone-budget-ever

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  • Army preps for competition limited to Bell and Sikorsky for long-range assault helicopter

    11 décembre 2020 | International, Aérospatial, Terrestre

    Army preps for competition limited to Bell and Sikorsky for long-range assault helicopter

    By: Jen Judson WASHINGTON — The Army is taking its final steps before starting a competition to acquire a Future Long Range Assault Aircraft, and has done so by issuing an intent to solicit bids using means “other than full and open competition,” according to a Dec. 9 post on on the government contracts website Beta.Sam.Gov. This step means that unless a surprise vendor can meet all of the Army's technical and production requirements for FLRAA in the next two weeks, the future aircraft will be supplied by either Bell or Lockheed Martin's Sikorsky. Bell and a Sikorsky-Boeing team have been pitted against one another for years to build and fly technology demonstrators to inform requirements ahead of the FLRAA competition and both are part of a competitive demonstration and risk reduction phase. Bell's V-280 Valor tiltrotor had it's first flight nearly three years ago and Sikorsky and Boeing's SB-1 Defiant coaxial helicopter flew for the first time in March 2019. The draft request for proposals is expected to be released by the end of the year with a final solicitations expected in fiscal 2021. Modernizing its vertical lift fleet is the Army's third highest priority behind Long-Range Precision Fires and Next-Generation Combat Vehicle development. The Army intends to field both a FLRAA and Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft by roughly FY30. Bell and Lockheed Martin are also competing against each other in the FARA competition. Bell's offering is the 360 Invictus and Lockheed's entry is the Raider X. In the case of FLRAA, the winner must build eight production aircraft for the first unit equipped by FY30. The plan is to award a contract to a winner in FY22. The winner will proceed to deliver a preliminary design review roughly eight months following the award. According to the pre-solicitation, “the Army has determined through extensive market research, including a July 2020 sources sought, that only two sources exist in the market space that have the capability and capacity of developing, manufacturing, testing and delivering both prototype and initial production FLRAA in the time allocated to achieve the Army's goal of an FUE in FY 2030.” The Army stated that Bell and Sikorsky are those two sources, but notes that “any other responsible, qualified sources, ... that can develop and produce the FLRAA weapon system to achieve First Unit Equipped (FUE) no later than 2030 are encouraged to full identify their interest and capabilities in accordance with the requirements,” within 15 days after publication of the pre-solicitation. Such a vendor would need to deliver a preliminary design review in FY22, start building prototype aircraft in the third quarter of FY23 and eight production aircraft by 2030. Vendors must also prove they are able to build 24 aircraft per year at full-rate production. Those aircraft must be able to fly at 2,000 feet pressure altitude in 85 degree heat with a full payload that consists of 12 troops at 290 lbs each and four crew at 281 lbs each. When the draft RFP drops, it is likely to contain a schedule to deliver air vehicle prototypes and mission systems. The Army was debating between two schedule options to deliver prototypes by roughly mid-2026. The FLRAA program has strong support from Congress. This year's annual defense policy bill authorized $5 million in increased investment in FLRAA advanced component development and prototyping on top of the Army's nearly $648 million request. The FY21 spending bill has yet to go through conference committee, but both the House and Senate proposed additional funding for FLRAA. The House Appropriations Committee proposed a $20 million increase while the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee proposed a $79 million addition. Lawmakers added $76 million in funding to FLRAA's top line in FY20 to drive down technical risk and speed up delivery through the competitive demonstration and risk reduction effort. In FY20, Congress cut $34 million from the Army's other future vertical lift effort — the FARA program — which threatened the service's ability to provide some of its government-furnished equipment to competitors chosen to build and fly prototypes. The Army is supplying its new Improved Turbine Engine Program engine, a 20mm gun, an integrated munitions launcher and its modular open-systems architecture. The Army has since shored up that funding, according to service aviation leadership. https://www.defensenews.com/land/2020/12/10/army-preps-for-competition-limited-to-bell-and-sikorsky-for-long-range-assault-helicopter/

  • Opinion: How The 2020 Election Is Likely To Affect Defense

    22 novembre 2019 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité

    Opinion: How The 2020 Election Is Likely To Affect Defense

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Still, leaders at defense companies and analysts have to assess potential outcomes and what they may entail for 2021 and beyond. The current consensus is that there likely will be split-party control of Congress and the White House in 2021-22. The House probably will remain in Democratic control, but the Republicans may retain a slim majority in the Senate, given the number of “safe” seats they will defend. Democrats might sweep in, but they are very unlikely to gain a 60-seat majority, and it is arguable that if they do not, the chamber will vote to do away with cloture, which gives the minority party in the Senate power to shape and channel legislation. This alone should temper expectations that there will be radical changes for defense. Moreover, the day after the 2020 election, both parties will have their eyes on the 2022 election, when 12 Democratic and 22 Republican seats will be contested. If Trump is reelected, the simplest path forward will be to conclude that current defense policies will remain in place. Congress has not been willing to approve the deep nondefense discretionary cuts the administration has proposed for 2017-19, and it is not clear what would change this posture in 2021-22. Barring a major change in the global security outlook, U.S. defense spending may thus remain hemmed in by debt/deficit concerns and demands for parity in increases of nondefense spending. Trump is likely to continue to browbeat allies in Europe and Asia to spend more on defense. The Pentagon will push ahead with its current major modernization and technology priorities, including artificial intelligence, directed energy and hypersonics, and there should be some continuity with civilian leadership at the Pentagon. However, the global security outlook may be the biggest variable for the sector to assess. Iran has not shown any readiness to bow to U.S. “maximum pressure,” and North Korea has not denuclearized. How Russia and China respond to the prospects of another four years of Trump also has to be weighed. NATO and other alliances also may be under more stress. And inevitably, there are likely to be new security issues in the early 2020s that are not top of mind or even conceivable today. There are a range of defense views and perspectives among the leading Democratic candidates. The views of the two most progressive candidates—Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)—could be viewed as potentially the most disruptive for defense. Warren, in particular, has emphasized her view of “agency capture” by major U.S. contractors, and her health care plan is to be paid for in part by a $798 billion cut to defense spending over 10 years, though the baseline of those cuts has not been stipulated. If a progressive candidate appears to do well in the Democratic nomination process and in polling against Trump, however, it will be useful to recall the congressional dynamic noted above. Congress could act as a firewall against steeper cuts and sweeping change. Equally, it is useful to recall that what candidates promise is not always what they do once they are in office. A more moderate, centrist Democratic candidate such as former Vice President Joe Biden or South Bend, Illinois, Mayor Pete Buttigieg may appear benign for defense and will very likely face the same geopolitical security challenges that Trump could face. If there is a shift back toward a U.S. promotion of democracy and human rights, that could affect recent international defense export patterns and raise tensions with China, Russia and other autocratic regimes. Probably, there will be a bigger debate over nuclear strategic forces modernization, the role of technology in defense and whether it can deliver credible military capability and deterrence at lower cost. Even if U.S. defense spending evidences little real growth in the early 2020s, these factors could be the most important for contractors to navigate. https://aviationweek.com/defense/opinion-how-2020-election-likely-affect-defense

  • Norway to purchase HIMARS from Lockheed Martin, snubbing Hanwha

    12 août 2024 | International, Terrestre

    Norway to purchase HIMARS from Lockheed Martin, snubbing Hanwha

    Norway has requested to buy 16 of Lockheed Martin’s M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems.

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